• Heartbreak Cafe on Second Avenue and Second Street gets the OK for a sidewalk cafe. This, though, after the Heartbreakers apparently agreed that they wouldn't seek a sidewalk license... Regardless, they were OK'd for eight tables and 32 seats on the Second Avenue side. This whole episode put a committee member in a snit.

• Momofuku Milk Bar gets the OK for a new location across the street from their current 13th Street digs. The booze will only be served in the desserts or something. And they'll have two beers on the menu. Rather, two different kinds of beer.

• I've heard the most about The Beagle, which is OK'd to take over the Orologio space at 162 Avenue A between 10th Street and 11th Street. One resident told me their menu had entrees priced between $26-31. But, a Beagle rep said that was an old menu, and of the 31 items, 20 are $12 and under. Still, one resident told me how unhappy he is with menu items such as whole pigs and foie gras.

25 comments:

I signed the petition opposing the Beagle after reading some of the items that would be on the menu.Appetizers:Braised and Pressed Pig Head - $16 Bacon Wrapped Rabbit Loin - $18Roasted bone Marrow w/foie gras - $18 Entrees:Pan Roasted Squab - $27 Braised Lamb Neck - $25 etc.

A community member who got up to speak in opposition of the Beagle spoke for herself as well as for someone who could not attend because of an injury.

The woman spoke passionately about animal rights stating that the process in producing foie gras is barbaric like the process in producing a fur coat, and that it is a primary animal rights issue that has been in the main stream for over twenty years.

Community board member Ariel Palitz who dominated this particular agenda item stated that she was a long time vegetarian and that she could care. That's good, she's a vegetarian who doesn't stand for animal rights when it comes to business in the East village, now how dumb is that!

The woman also spoke for someone else who said that he met with the owner of the Beagle and that the owner said that if there was community opposition that he would not move forward and that he had no intention of using the outdoor area.

The owner of the Beagle sounds like an absolute liar! When he got up to speak he said that he intended to use the outdoor area. He also came with a new menu which none of us got to see. He said that the items were significantly less in price than the original menu. What does that mean? Sounds like this new small plates concept where one needs to order several items in order to fill up.

The community board did not ask him if it was true that he said that he would back down if there was community opposition.

This guy had guilt written all over his face and is in my opinion despicable. If he were a man of his word he would back down.

No, but if people who live directly on the block do not want a place like this for what ever reason the community board is supposed to be there to support what the community wants, but that never happens.

In this case the one to blame is really the owner of the building who actually lives there and is no differen't than any other landlord. They want the money.The reason Orologio is selling is because they can't make it as a reasonably priced restaurant with such high rent. The problem with this place is that the liquor license is being sold and transferred to the Beagle.In other words the guy from the Beagle is buying the liquor lisense from Orologio for around $200-$250,000. It's called a transfer which is allowable under this community board. I don't think it exists any other community boards in the city. It is part of an on going problem of perpetuating licenses in the EV and LES.I wish Orologio could stay and just raise their prices a little bacause high end places like this just help to further gentrify the area.

I'm willing to cut "Heartbreak" some slack. Ingrid Roettele has been a good neighbor in the EV for a long time. (Over on 7th near A)And where else can you get regional German/Swiss/French cuisine at a reasonable price?

"To produce "foie gras" (which literally means "fatty liver"), workers ram pipes down male ducks' or geese's throats two or three times daily and pump as much as 4 pounds of grain and fat into the animals' stomachs, causing their livers to bloat to up to 10 times their normal size. Many birds have difficulty standing because of their engorged livers...."

The amazing thing here is that you are all acting like foie gras is some rare dish that will only be available at this new place when in truth it's served at just about every noteworthy restaurant in town. There are at least 15 places within two blocks of the beagle that serve foie gras and hundreds in Manhattan. I hate to break it to you, but it's NO BIG DEAL. And as for pig's head, have you ever heard of bologna? Same thing, different name. It requires the death of pig to get bacon, pork chops or any "non-offensive" meat, so why waste? Get in touch with your native American and stop hating so much.

I remember the pre-Orologio Thai restaurant that used to be here in the 1980s, Krua Luang. They served the most astonishing exotic tropical drinks I've ever seen, bedecked with orchids or hibiscus flowers, colorful straws, plastic monkeys and all sorts of other geegaws. They were huge and gorgeous and delicious, and far more eco-friendly than the awful offal the Beagle will be purveying. Too bad we cant bring them back!

BTW Anon 2:10, the community board has nothing to do with the transfer of liquor licenses, they cannot set any policy and are strictly an advisory board. That's a state SLA policy and it holds in every community board cachement area, not just CB3.

Please explain how PLASTIC monkeys, colored straws (also plastic) and flowers that need to shipped from foreign countries are more eco-friendly than using every part of an animal that was probably grown a farm not more than 20 miles away? Eco-friendly refers to how much of an impact you make compared to what you reap from it. Gaja Earth doesn't care if you kill a pig, she does it all the time. She only cares if you waste it.

In response to the long anonymous comment with the menu tidbits, I was also present, and a signer of the petition is support of the Beagle. Yes there was one. You say that the owner said he would step down if there was community opposition. You seem to not understand that there was also community support. In fact many more residents signed the pro petition than the anti petition, it would seem that the opposition was not as strong as you think it was. Just because you and your little group of friends don't like something or don't understand it, doesn't mean that a) everybody in the world agrees with you or b) that you have the right to deny the rest of your neighborhood what they clearly want.

The fact is, there wasn't any community opposition except your little group. Please stop trying to decide what entire neighborhood can do with it's time and money.

And for the love of god, stop invoking the Native Americans. Using native people's culture (which I highly doubt is your own; you probably grew up on Long Island, or in Wisconsin) to defend an elitist and cruel menu is beyond obnoxious. And when I studied the Lenape in college I don't recall reading that they dined on foie gras and veal.

Foie Gras is an unhealthy diseased ducks liver. The duck is tortured to the point of near death, living in it's own shit, and you people support this practice and actually want to eat this for pleasure.

As for comparing it to practices in producing fur, the production of foie gras is actually worse because the torture lasts longer. With fur it's a one shot deal, human beings skin the animal alive or else stick a hot poker up their ass as to not damage the fur. Sounds like murder to me. I thought we were over this in terms of these two issues, but to tell you the truth I've noticed more and more fur coats in the neighborhood and more and more foie gras on menus of restaurants on the LES and EV. It's no doubt a reflection of man's inhumanity which is at an all time high.

Who the hell eats shit like this and for chrissakes squab! At least the sustainable food movement believes in producing healthy animals and putting them down in a humane way. I'm not saying that most of the people around here who either dine at or own sustainable restaurants aren't in it primarily for their own health or profits rather than for animal rights. I think that for the most part people who dine at sustainable restaurants just want to have the best quality of whatever for themselves.

These disgusting and expensive delicacies are just a reflection of a greedy narcissistic society.

@Anon. 12:07 - Oh sod off, you sanctimonious prig. FYI I'm a vegetarian and buy 90% of my food at the Union Square Greenmarket; I compost, use green light bulbs, abhor fur and donate regularly to environmental charities (my choices, and in no way meant to belittle anyone else's). So don't lecture ME about what eco-friendly means, 'kay? But yeah, I'll take plastic monkeys over dead rabbits any day because no living creature had to die in pain to produce them. Bet the rabbits would think that was the friendlier choice, too.

Regarding the petitions, The Beagle had signatures from all over the neighborhood but very, very few from people who actually live on the block. One woman showed up with 14 signatures just from her one building, which is right on the corner.

As far as transfers, Lisa, you are not right, the Community Board does have a policy about transfers and makes a recommendation to the SLA about whether to approve. By their own rules, which they make up, and which are not the same as other Community Boards in Manhattan, they approve almost all transfers without any real review, which is what this case was. Transfers and new licenses are treated very, very differently by Community Board 3, very specifically designed to protect the high value of the liquor license for the owner of the bar. Liquor licenses sell for upwards of $100,000.

The SLA doesn't have the category "transfer," this is strictly a community board terminology.

And furthermore, the woman who commented above who showed up to support The Beagle lives on Avenue C, so restaurants and bars on Avenue A do not impact her life or ability to get into her front door or step in the vomit on the way in.

And also, I may be wrong because I'm not so good with faces, but I'm going to put it out there, I believe she is the sister of an East Village restaurant/bar owner, so not exactly "just another member of the community."

I almost cried after reading all the comments from the self-righteous "community members" who are suffering the loss of so many pig heads and duck livers. Are you kidding me? Is this your first cause ever? It's the East Village, people, not a vegan community on the outskirts of some forsaken place (where some of you should probably be living and eating what you, with your own little keyboard-worn hands, sow happily). Grow up and stop whining and making business peoples' lives miserable. They have families too, you know, and have you got any idea how hard it is to make it in the restaurant business nowadays? (I have been an Orologio customer for years and hate to see it go, but how many of you cared to give it business the whole time it stood empty, yet never cut corners to give its customers less than their best, freshest food? Now you bemoan its departure -- unfortunately too little, too late.) And who said any restaurant's menu has to be tailored to your specific hems and haws? If you don't like what they serve, DON'T GO. Simple as that. Go someplace else, open your own restaurant, stay home and COOK, or organize dinner parties for all the other vegetarians and animal rights (convenience) activists who are feeling so temporarily grief-stricken. Some of your comments amount to nothing more than soapbox rants typical of arrogant, self-deserving and self-serving folk.

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